Page 91 of Warming His Bed
SADIE
The hours ticked down until the big event. I’d insisted Kobie let me tag along for her opening day checklist survey, making the excuse that it would help ensure I didn’t miss a single thing the festival had to offer. In reality, I was just looking for another in a long line of excuses to keep myself busy and away from Drew.
He would take the stage for his Valor King debut later this afternoon. I planned to watch from the sidelines, but I wasn’t getting close enough to give him the chance to pin me down in a serious conversation. Every time I closed my eyes I saw that look on his face when Gwen approached him in the diner. The soul-crushing longing. Like he’d just figured out what he’d let go of all those years ago.
No matter how hard I tried to erase the image by slipping into his bed late at night, it still crept in after the fact. So I made my excuses to avoid the talk where that other shoe dropped. He’d already hinted at the diner that he didn’t want me staying past the end of the festival. I knew I should just come clean and tell him I was going to leave on Sunday, but I hadn’t built up the nerve to rip that Band-Aid off just yet. I wasn’t ready to see the inevitable relief that was sure to be on his face.
Talking with Drew wasn’t the only thing I was avoiding.
Tuesday night I sent Eirin another fluff piece where I talked about how everyone in the town denied the Everetts’ existence. I implied the town doth protest too much, but anyone could see the appeal of relocating to this tight-knit lakeside community.
My relationship article had been tamer than usual too. No scintillating (mostly made-up) stories about some guy I bagged on the road. No saucy tips for spicing up your sex life. Instead, I wrote about vulnerability and opening your heart up to the possibility of true love, even if you found it in an unexpected place.
What a fool I was.
The next day I got a cryptic, single-word reply.
Eirin: Nope.
It had been radio silence since then. Three days of quiet from her couldn’t be a good sign, but my gut told me to let sleeping dogs lie. I only needed to squeak by a few more days to make it to my appointment on Monday night. And until I heard otherwise, I was assuming the festival piece was the only article left I needed to work on.
“Thanks, Cade.” Kobie’s words broke me from my thoughts as she handed the safety inspection checklist back to the man operating the Ferris wheel. He gave her a friendly nod and a smile.
Even the carnies in Kelly Bay were affable. There was just something about this town.
Kobie turned to me. “Feel like you’ve gotten the lay of the land?”
“Definitely.”
I’d spent the last few hours snapping pictures of the townsfolk milling about before the big opening ceremony. Most of the more generic rides and carnival games were already up and running by early afternoon today, so I was able to get some decent photos.
The festival was part traditional carnival, part Ren Faire, with a very specific emphasis on the goose theme Kobie had told me about. All the standard attractions you’d expect were present, like the Tilt-A-Whirl, the Gravitron, and the pirate ship ride. Games that were certainly rigged were smattered between the rides along the main thoroughfare, as well as stands for lemon shake-ups, elephant ears, and giant turkey legs.
Perhaps the most ridiculous thing I’d seen so far was a booth where you could play tic-tac-toe against a goose. There was a giant light-up board and the goose was trained to hit a button to choose a square on its turn in exchange for a small serving of cracked corn and chopped-up grapes. I watched that goose beat three grown men in a row before we had to move on to our next stop.
“Okay.” Kobie dusted off her hands before placing them on her hips. “Everything on the games and rides checklist is done. Now I just have to make sure everything is in place for the opening ceremony and then goose bingo right after.”
“I can’t believe these words about to come out of my mouth…but what, exactly, is goose bingo?” I asked.
She laughed. “It’s kind of like a fifty-fifty raffle, but with a unique flair. Everyone buys preprinted bingo sheets and the winner takes home half the pot while the rest goes to charity.”
“All right. But where do the geese come in?”
“You remember Goose Willis and Liam Geeson from the tic-tac-toe booth?”
I smiled. “How could I forget?”
“Well, they’re going to be all nice and full by the time seven p.m. rolls around and that’s when we move them over to the field north of the parking lot. We’ve got a grid spray painted on the field with all the bingo numbers and everyone waits to see where they poop.”
I must have stared at her for a full thirty seconds before I straight up lost it. Laughing so hard I could barely catch my breath, I bent over with my hands on my knees.
“What did you think goose bingo was going to be?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I wheezed. “But not that.” I stood back up and wrapped an arm around my stomach while I wiped the tears out of the corners of my eyes. God, I needed that laugh. “You mean to tell me half the town is standing around a field waiting to see where a goose poops?”
“You bet they are.” She looked mildly offended at my reaction. “Last year Ramona Griffin walked away with a little over three grand when she won.”
“Okay, okay. I get it. It’s a big deal.”